Monday, September 30, 2013

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

REVIEW

“But these
words people threw around—humans, monsters, heroes, villains—to Victor it was
all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still
walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying
to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how
to play be being human.”

In my
opinion this small excerpt from the Vicious is the core of the book. If this
intrigues you then continue on, if not then this will not be your cup of tea (but
to be honest if you like amazing books then you should continue on.)

Vicious
is utterly fantastic. V.E. Schwab not only has written a captivating story that
will entrance readers to the last page of the book (at which point they will be
distraught to learn the book is over), but she has written a book that has the
readers questioning the basics of the superhero/super villain classic
situation. Often readers are presented with a clear cut hero who does right, or
a hero who does right even when he appears to be doing wrong, in either
situation you know who you should be cheering for. In Vicious we are presented
with a murderer and a man out for revenge. One believes he is a hero, destined
from above to eliminate EOs, and the other just wants revenge and sees the ends
justifying the means, he’d prefer not to kill innocents, but if he has to then
he will.

This may
not sound like a lot, but to be honest Vicious is amazing. The action is fun,
the pacing exhilarating, and the story intriguing. But it is the characters
that take this book to the next level. I loved reading about Victor and Eli and
thought that Schwab did an outstanding job creating such dynamic characters. I
highly recommend this book, and if you’re looking for something to help stem
the loss from Braking Bad ending then look no further.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Isadora's family is seriously screwed up—which comes with the territory when you're the human daughter of the ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris. Isadora is tired of living with crazy relatives who think she's only worthy of a passing glance—so when she gets the chance to move to California with her brother, she jumps on it. But her new life comes with plenty of its own dramatic—and dangerous—complications . . . and Isadora quickly learns there's no such thing as a clean break from family.

REVIEW

First off I’m a sucker for a book with myths and gods in it. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse, you name it. I don’t know why but I tend to have a soft spot for them. That’s not saying I will automatically love books that use these myths as building blocks or its gods as characters, all it’s saying is I usually am attracted to them and give them a little bit more patience when deciding if I liked them or not.

In this case I didn’t need the extra patience.

The Chaos of Stars is a great YA book. It’s much less a book about the gods and mystic abilities, as it is a story about the changes in family life when a newborn is on the way. The story centers on Isadora’s feelings of being shoved out of the family with the arrival of a new baby. On top of that are Isadora’s conflicting feelings of wanting to rebel from her mothers wishes and missing home. There is also a love story element that readers will enjoy and that helps move the story along, but the crux of the emotions being played out are ones of a typical teenager. What makes The Chaos of Stars interesting and different though are White’s creative background to the story, the fact that Isadora’s parents are not accountants and teachers but are instead actual Egyptian gods, Isis and Osiris, and that the reason they continue to have children is to continue there very existence, as their power and survival is based on belief in them. On top of that White has a fantastic writing style that will suck readers in from the first pages and keep them glued there until the last word.

All in all, White is fantastic at taking imaginative and intriguing worlds and telling a story based on normal teenager emotions that readers will relate to. She did a fantastic job in her Paranormalcy series and she again does a fantastic job of it here in the Chaos of Stars. If you’re looking for a book where you’ll relate to the characters and the emotions, yet want a bit of magic in the story, then this is the book for you